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Hijacker of EgyptAir plane never entered cockpit: pilot

The man accused of hijacking an Egyptian plane and diverting it to Cyprus did not enter the cockpit during the six-hour long ordeal, the pilot of the aircraft said Sunday.

PHOTO: AFP

[CAIRO] The man accused of hijacking an Egyptian plane and diverting it to Cyprus did not enter the cockpit during the six-hour long ordeal, the pilot of the aircraft said Sunday.

Egyptian Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa is accused of using a fake suicide belt to force the Alexandria-to-Cairo flight to divert to Cyprus on Tuesday, and has been remanded into custody in Cyprus.

He said he acted out of desperation to see his ex-wife and children who live in the eastern Mediterranean island.

"Immediately after the hijacking, I asked the security officer to stay at the door of the cockpit and not leave," EgyptAir pilot Amr Al-Gamal told reporters in a meeting organised by Egyptian authorities.

For the crew it was an six-hour long emotional drama that saw a British passenger taking a photograph with Mostafa and a co-pilot escaping by jumping out of a window of the cockpit.

"The captain asked us to take a photo of the hijacker," said stewardess Nayera Atef al-Dabs, whose photograph with Mostafa wearing what appears to be a rudimentary suicide vest strapped to his chest has gone viral on the Internet.

She said she posed for a picture with Mostafa after a British passenger did the same.

"I was crying in the bathroom and I called my sister to tell her to take care of my three-year-old son. I was trying to look calm in front of the passengers," said Ms Dabs, recalling Tuesday's ordeal.